I'd like for you or someone to attempt a crude, ball park estimate for me of the net gains from immigration in a specific case.
All these examples are odd because you initially ask for "net benefits," but then switch to benefits for the *initial inhabitants and/or their descendants*. But since you asked:
How much better off is Yugoslavia today as a result of past immigration than it would have been if it had tightly restricted immigration?
There is massive uncertainty, but I'd guess about the same. It's hard to say which wars would have replaced the wars they wound up fighting if their policies were different. I will say that without the Serb nationalism needed to sustain strict immigration controls, the whole area could easily have spent the century as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in which case they would all be far richer.
But how much better off is the *average* Palestinian--most of whom live in the West Bank and Gaza strip--as a result of Jewish immigration? And since immigration makes their lives so much better, why is there so much unrest?
Here's another case where foolish nationalism has prevented the realization of obvious economic benefits. If the Palestinians would just abjectly surrender and accept Israeli rule they would at least be relatively well-paid unskilled laborers. In a generation or two they would be average citizens of a First World nation.
A third example: American immigration to the Mexican state of Texas certainly benefited the immigrants; but as a result, half of Mexico was, a generation later, off limits to most Mexican citizens until today. How much did the average member of the receiving party benefit from allowing large scale Anglo immigration to Texas?
If Texas remained part of Mexico, it would probably just be another poor area of Mexico, so it's hard to see the loss even for Mexicans. American Texas + Mexican immigration has been far better for Mexicans than a Mexican Texas.
If current immigration policies in the United States give the Democrats a permanent lock on the White House beginning in 2008, and eventually a lock on Congress as well, how much better off will the receiving party and their posterity be as a result? In California, would Cruz Bustamante be a frontrunner in the special election for governor in the absence of large scale immigration from Mexico?
I agree that Mexican immigration helps the Democrats. But the effect is mild. Blacks are about 30 percentage points more Democratic than you would otherwise expect. Hispanics are only about 15 percentage points more Democratic. I suspect a big part of this gap is not that Hispanics share Democratic ideology so much as Democrats show less hatred towards them. (And unlike practically every other case of alleged "political hatred," hatred of Mexican immigrants is very real).
Furthermore, Mexicans they have low turnout in U.S. elections. I've heard claims of extensive voting by illegal immigrants, but I doubt it's more than a few isolated cases. If political effects concern you, illegal immigration is really *better* because they are even less likely to vote.
It is also worth pointing out that *non-immigrants'* enthusiasm for the welfare state is probably significantly lower because they think their money will go to foreigners. Even if immigrants all voted for a bigger welfare state, it's quite possible that the net effect is to shrink the welfare state by eroding native support. That's a common explanation for the big European welfare states - due to their cultural homogeneity, they know that any taxes they pay go to help other people like themselves, so they don't mind high taxes so much.
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Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] "But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of
his own unlike those of his brethren."--J.R.R. Tolkien, *The Silmarillion*
